


Stuck Together

by aflawedfashion



Category: Defiance (TV)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Pre-Relationship, mild angsty moments that ends in fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 16:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13885017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflawedfashion/pseuds/aflawedfashion
Summary: Shortly after Berlin returns to Defiance, she and Irisa wake up in the middle of nowhere with no memory of how they got there.





	Stuck Together

“One thousand four hundred and ninety-one.” Berlin rolled her head to the side, cold blades of grass tickling her cheek as she looked at Irisa’s sleeping face. It was impossible to hate that face. “One thousand four hundred and ninety-two.” 

She watched Irisa’s eyelashes flutter, fighting the impulse to wake her, fighting the desire to share her thoughts. If she woke Irisa, she’d have to explain, and she didn’t have an explanation. 

“One thousand four hundred and ninety-three,” she whispered as she turned to face the vast, dark sky. There were nights she avoided looking at the stars, hated the way her head spun trying to understand what was out there, but not this night. Away from everything that mattered, away from people and their problems, Berlin was free. She was safe. For the first time since she returned to Defiance, she didn’t feel crushed under the weight of her own hopelessness.

“One thousand four hundred and ninety-four.” _Just keep counting. Don’t let go of this feeling. Don’t think about endless fighting or your inevitable death._ _You’re thinking about it. Stop thinking about it._ “One thousand four hundred and ninety-five. One thousand four hundred and-“ 

“Where are we?” Irisa mumbled, her voice heavy with sleep.

“Don’t know exactly, but I think the arch is that way.” Berlin pointed into the forest. “Pretty sure we’re a long way from where we should be.”

Irisa’s eyes followed the line of Berlin’s outstretched arm into the trees. Blinking slowly, she pushed her messy red hair aside as she stared into the darkness that surrounded them, her face as calm as Berlin felt. Berlin smiled, feelings stirring in her that she didn’t want to feel. Then, in an instant, Irisa’s eyes grew wide, and she bolted upright, yanking Berlin’s hand away from her side.

“How did we get here?” Irisa reached for her knives, a trained fighter ready to attack. 

“Relax, Catwoman.” Berlin raised an eyebrow, wondering why Irisa seemed oblivious to one critical detail of their predicament. “I was hoping you could tell me that.” 

“I…” Irisa stopped speaking, staring straight ahead. “I have no idea.”

“Then I guess we’ll never know.” Berlin shrugged. She was beyond caring how they ended up in the middle of nowhere. She only cared that they hadn’t been killed. “One thousand four hundred and ninety-six.”  _ Just keep counting.  _ “One thousand four hundred and ninety-seven.” She couldn’t stop now.

Irisa frowned, turning her attention to Berlin. “What are you doing?”

“Counting hellbugs.” 

“Hellbugs?” Irisa’s eyes darted in every direction, inspecting suspicious shadows in the distance. “If a thousand hellbugs surrounded us, we’d be dead.” 

“Not real hellbugs.” Berlin rolled her eyes. “Counting sheep didn’t feel authentic given I’ve never seen one outside of a cartoon, so I had to substitute.” 

“Have you lost your mind?” Irisa asked, time freezing as she stared into Berlin’s eyes with an intensity that made Berlin doubt her own sanity and wonder if the Kaziri had givien Irisa the ability to read thoughts. “Or maybe I’m dreaming.” Irisa‘s body relaxed, her eyes glazing over. “That’s the only way any of this would make sense.” 

“You’re not dreaming.” Berlin sighed as she pushed herself up beside Irisa. “Everything about this night is extremely real.” 

“Except for your imaginary hellbugs.”

A small laugh escaped from Berlin’s throat. “Yeah, except those.”

“And you don’t know how we got here?”

“Not a clue.”

Irisa paused, and Berlin waited for her to decide whether to accept her fate or fight to remember how they had ended up here. “I hate not knowing what’s going on,” she finally said.

“That’s how I felt at first, but the longer I waited for you to wake up, the less I cared.” 

“You were waiting for me?” Irisa looked at Berlin with an unreadable expression just long enough for Berlin to doubt everything she knew. Then Irisa smiled with more kindness than Berlin had ever seen from her, and Berlin’s stomach flipped. “You could have left me behind again, but you didn’t.  _ Again _ .”

“I’ve turned over a new leaf, remember?” Berlin nudged her shoulder against Irisa’s, smiling with the strength of the million conflicting emotions that swirled within her. “I’m done abandoning you.” And she meant it.

“That’s the second time this month you’ve decided not to abandon me.” Irisa returned the smile, and if Berlin didn’t know better, she’d think Irisa was flirting with her. “If you’re not careful, I might get used to it.” She was definitely flirting.

Berlin turned to face the trees, struggling to hold Irisa’s gaze. “Well, can you just stop getting yourself nearly killed so I can stop being the bigger person?” She could feel a blush burning at her cheeks. “I don’t like it.” 

“I’ll try.” 

“Thank you.” Berlin’s eyes flickered between the ground and Irisa’s face. “But before you go thinking too highly of me…” Berlin raised her hand, and Irisa’s followed, their wrists bound together by handcuffs. “I should also point out that I don’t know how to undo these.” 

“Did you handcuff yourself to me?” Irisa asked, her eyes suspiciously traveling Berlin’s body. 

“No,” Berlin snapped. “Why the chup would I do that?”

“I don’t know.” Irisa tugged on the handcuffs. 

“That’s not going to work. Trust me.” She had tried it three times already. “Just pick the lock, and let’s get out of here.” 

“With what?”

“Anything. Use those Goddess of the Badlands skills.” 

Irisa continued struggling to pull the cuffs open with no luck. “I don’t have anything I can pick the lock with.”

“Are you serious?” Berlin furrowed her eyebrows, disappointment washing over her. “You’re supposed to pull a shiny lockpick out of your boots and free us.” She hadn’t considered that Irisa wouldn’t be able to pick the lock. In spite of the problems between them, Irisa seemed like a superhero to Berlin (and until recently, a supervillain). “You did it so easily in the book.”

“What book?”

“Amazing Goddess of the Badlands,” Berlin said. “How many books have been written about you?”

“You read that?” Irisa dropped the cuffs, their hands falling into the grass. “You read a book about me?”

“Yeah, well…” Berlin squirmed. “After I left Defiance, I didn’t have a lot to do.” She really hoped Irisa couldn’t read thoughts, couldn’t see that Berlin had bought the novel after standing in a bookstore, staring at it so long the shopkeeper had scolded her for treating his store like a library. “Don’t go making a big deal about it.”

“You could have read anything, but you read about me.” A playful smile transformed Irisa’s face. “Maybe you missed me.”

“No, no, no. No. No, no, no.” Berlin vigorously shook her head. “It was definitely not that.”

“Sure.” Irisa nodded in amusement at Berlin’s expense. “You keep telling yourself that.” 

“I will because it’s the truth.” Berlin didn’t know if she was lying or not. “I absolutely, positively did not miss you. I barely like you. I’ve been sitting out here, counting hellbugs,  _ not _ thinking about you because I  _ do not _ think about you.” That was a lie. Lying beside Irisa, it was hard not to think about her and all the things she should have said long ago. “Reading that book meant nothing,” she rushed to add, realizing a moment too late that it only made her lie more transparent.

“Of course.” Irisa smiled, thankfully dropping the subject. Irisa’s social skills were less than amazing, but Berlin had to give her credit for knowing enough to back off. “So, are you going to explain your hellbug-sheep to me, or are you trying to make me guess?”

Berlin sat up straight, her mouth falling open in excitement. “Can I make you guess?”

“That’s not a good idea.” Irisa’s eyelids narrowed, but the playful shine in her eyes never diminished. “If you try, I’ll pull a knife on you.”

“Bullshtack.” 

“I don’t make idle threats,” Irisa snarled, failing to be convincingly frightening. “I’ve held a knife to your skin before. I’d do it again.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Berlin’s mouth. “If I were one of your adoring fans, maybe I’d believe you were dangerous, but I know something they don’t.” 

“And what’s that?” 

“You can’t hurt a fly anymore.” Berlin placed a hand on Irisa’s leg, just above the knives holstered to her side. “These are just decoration, a habit you can’t quit.” 

Berlin expected Irisa to get angry, wanted her to fight back, but Irisa simply looked into Berlin’s eyes and said, “What are we doing?” 

“I don’t know.” Berlin leaned closer to Irisa. “But I kind of want to see where it’s headed.” 

”I don’t.” Irisa’s gaze dropped to their cuffed hands.

“You sure about that?” Berlin asked. She could feel Irisa’s pulse racing beneath her warm skin, see her breath hitching in her throat as Berlin moved her hand along the side of her leg. 

“No,” Irisa said, “but now’s not the time for us to fight.” She paused, her gaze clear and logical. “Or to start anything else.” They both knew the tension between them wasn’t leading to another fight.

“Fine,” Berlin smirked as she pulled away from Irisa. “Some other time, then.” 

Irisa tilted her head down to hide her smile as she secured her knives. “So… the hellbugs.” 

“Right, well, you know how kids used to count sheep to help themselves fall asleep?”

“No.”

“They did.”

“Ok… so you’re counting hellbugs to fall asleep?”

“At first I was, but then I started counting them to stop thinking about this town getting obliterated by the VC or the Omec or whatever the chup else is out there.” Berlin made a failed attempt at a smile, her voice wavering more with every word. “It’s crushing, you know?”

Irisa nodded in understanding. There probably wasn’t a single person in Defiance who didn’t understand that feeling. “Seems everyone wants to destroy this town.”

“So you see why I was in no rush to wake you up and get us back there.”

“Yeah,” Irisa said, her voice quiet. “You think we could just live out here for a while, wait until this blows over? We could become one with nature.” It was supposed to be a joke, but there was a seriousness in Irisa’s eyes that Berlin that Berlin understood all too well. The desire to run away from Defiance was overwhelming. They had both tried.

“Probably,” Berlin said. “But then we’d disappoint the mayor and her favorite lawkeeper, and I think we’ve both done enough of that this year.” 

Irisa took a deep breath. “We should go back.”

“And we will.”

“I know.” 

“So, I guess there’s no sense in stalling any longer.” Berlin stood, dragging Irisa’s arm with her. “Come on. Let’s make this walk of shame back home.”

“It would only be a walk of shame if we had sex first,” Irisa grumbled as she stood up, brushing the dirt off her clothes.

“Neither of us remembers what happened, and I don’t know about you, but whenever I’ve woken up next to someone with no memory of the night before, it was after a night of inappropriate, drunken sex.”

“What?”

“Trust me; you’re not the most unexpected person I’ve ever woken up next to.” 

Berlin stepped forward, trying to lead them towards the arch, but Irisa was frozen in place. “What do you mean by that?”

“Never mind.” Berlin waved the thought away. “Let's just get out of here.” 

“It sounds like you’re saying that you think that we’ve already…” 

“Don’t worry. It’s just speculation.” Berlin grinned. “Maybe we killed a man, and buried his body out here.” 

Irisa’s wide eyes blinked several times before she asked, “Is that supposed to be better or worse than blackout sex?”

“Depends on who we killed.” 

“Who would we-“

“I can think of a lot of people we’d both want dead,” Berlin interrupted, her skin crawling at the thought of what they could have done, of what could have been done to them. Every inch of her body hoped it was just drunk sex. “But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about something else. Anything else.” 

“Ok.” Irisa nodded, visibility taken aback by Berlin’s abrupt tonal shift. “I like talking about books,” she stated, forcing the words out of her mouth like she was speaking a foreign language. “Did you read anything else while you were gone?” Irisa’s attempt at small talk was almost comical, but it was exactly the levity Berlin needed.

“Actually, I did,” Berlin said as they started the long march home. “Conrad’s family is loaded. Their personal library houses more books than this entire town. It’s truly amazing; you’d love it, but there was one in particular called  _ Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? _ that got me thinking. I’d already seen the film, which has its flaws, but it’s definitely better than the book. Anyway, I think-”

“The film is better?” Irisa looked as offended by Berlin’s statement as if she had written it herself. “How can you say that?”

“Because it is?” 

“No.” Irisa shook her head. “I can't believe that.”

“Have you seen it?” 

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Because the movie is  _ never _ better.” 

“Well, this one is, and besides that, I just really love the visual that old movies give the future. I love learning what people in the old world found beautiful alongside what they thought would ruin us,” Berlin said, beginning a conversation that lasted the rest of the night. For a few hours, they forgot everything that mattered, but as soon as they stepped foot on the gravel streets, their conversation fell away, replaced by a sense of dread. Back to real life. Back to danger. Back to fighting for survival.

“We’re home,” Irisa said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, we are.” Impulsively, Berlin grabbed Irisa’s hand and draped her jacket over their cuffed hands.

“What are you doing?”

“Hiding the handcuffs.”

“Now it just looks like we’re holding hands.”

“That’s the point.”

“Everyone who sees us will think this is our walk of shame back from a night of sex in the woods,” Irisa hissed.

“No, holding hands says we’re returning from a cute breakfast date. Walking into town in handcuffs says we had wild sex in the woods and the lost key.” 

“That’s not true.” 

“Of course it is.” Berlin lifted her hand, Irisa’s forced to follow. “There are more handcuffs in the NeedWant than in the lawkeeper’s office.” Berlin squeezed Irisa’s hand. “Just go with it.”

“Good morning girls,” an old woman said as she passed them, pushing a cart of vegetables along the street. “Aren’t you two cute.” 

“Thank you,” Berlin said with a smile. 

“So rare to see such a sweet, happy couple these days.” She reached out and squeezed Irisa’s arm. “Warms my heart.” 

Irisa glared at the spot on her arm where the woman had touched her until Berlin elbowed her in the side. “Say thank you,” she whispered into Irisa’s ear. 

“Yeah, thanks,” Irisa said, still reeling from the force of Berlin’s elbow to her side.

“Have a good morning,” Berlin added as the woman continued her walk. 

“See,” Berlin said when the woman was out of earshot, “my plan worked perfectly.”

“I’m not telling anyone else we’re a couple,” Irisa said as they hurried down the street towards the lawkeeper’s office.

Berlin rolled her eyes, wishing Irisa could lighten up a bit. “Fine. We can just show the handcuffs to the next little old lady we see.” 

“Fine,” Irisa agreed with a single nod of her head. “It’s better than lying.”

“You say that now,” Berlin said, a grin forming on her face as she noticed exactly who the next people they would encounter were. “But just wait.” 

“Shtacko,” Irisa whispered.

“Told you,” Berlin added under her breath, smiling as Amanda and Nolan approached. 

“Hey,” Amanda said.

“Didn’t think you were both working this morning,” Nolan said.

“We’re not,” Irisa said. 

“Don’t tell me you’re spending your free time together.” Amanda’s eyes widened in surprise as she looked at their linked hands. She almost seemed impressed.

“We were hoping not to get caught like this, but we’re kind of…” Berlin pushed her jacket aside, raising their cuffed hands. “... stuck together.” 

“What are you doing?” Irisa hissed, her cheeks burning red. 

“What you told me to.” 

“Amanda’s not some random old lady,” Irisa hissed.

“I’d like to think I’m not an old lady at all,” Amanda said, sharing a confused look with Nolan.

“First thing, you’re not old,” Nolan said to Amanda. “Second thing, I want nothing to do with this conversation.” With a wave goodbye, he disappeared into the street muttering, “There are some things you don’t want to know about your daughter.”

“I want to know.” Amanda folded her arms, a knowing grin on her face. “Not the whole gory story. Just the PG-13 summary.” 

“It’s a long story,” Berlin said. 

“One I’m sure you don’t have time to hear right now,” Irisa rushed to add. “You must have a lot of work to do.”

“Oh, no, not at all,” Amanda said. “I’ve got all morning, and Kenya used to tell me all kinds of handcuff mishaps. Trust me; I’ve heard ‘em all.” 

“Sure, ok,” Berlin said, having too much fun torturing Irisa to let the opportunity slip away. “You see it all started when this fiery redhead burst into town with her Han Solo wannabe father-“

“No.” Irisa shook her head, yanking Berlin away from Amanda. “We’re not doing this.”

Berlin shrugged an apology at Amanda before turning to Irisa. 

“What were you going to tell her?” Irisa asked, nearly running as she pulled them down the street.

“I don’t know, but what does it matter? Nothing happened, right?”

“Right,” Irisa said in the least convincing way possible. “Let’s just get these cuffs off and then we can watch that terrible movie of yours.”

“Why do you want to watch it if you think it’s so terrible?”

“To prove I’m right.”

“Ha,” Berlin scoffed. “I’m the one who’s going to be proven right.” 

“We’ll see about that.”

  
  



End file.
